


This May Sting

by Stratagem



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Appendicitis, Gen, Sickfic, Team as Family, concerned team, emergency space surgery, poor lance, space medics
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-06-19
Updated: 2017-12-29
Packaged: 2018-11-16 02:30:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 6,856
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11244492
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Stratagem/pseuds/Stratagem
Summary: Lance gets appendicitis. In space! Cue a very worried team. Also, Alteans don't understand why humans have apparently pointless body parts such as appendixes.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Disclaimer: I don't own VLD!
> 
> Omg Lance, I'm sorry in advance! I'm a terrible person. Takes place post S2, after they've magically found Shiro because I refuse to believe he's gone for good. Eh, and I've decided healing pods can't do surgery because I'm awful?

Ugh, Lance was really starting to regret eating so many of those blue sugar puffs at that sweet shop. The dull thud of pain centered around his belly button was definitely cosmic punishment. The Voltron gang had visited a space station around lunch, and there had been an amazing selection of restaurants and diners that had food humans could eat. The paladins might have overdone it once they found the candy store. Pidge had practically gone into a sugar coma at the sight of it, and they had all sampled practically everything in the shop.

Actually, what Lance really regretted was making the highly intelligent suggestion that everyone have an eating contest to see who could snarf down the most sugar puffs in ten minutes. Yeah, he was never doing that again. Coran had morphed some kind of alien vacuum mouth and devoured more puffs than Lance could hope to eat in an entire day. It had been amazing and disgusting and would possibly haunt his dreams for years to come.

Curling up around his aching stomach, he vaguely wondered why it hadn't hurt until now. The pain had been enough to wake him up at…uh… He checked the clock display and groaned. Three in the morning. Did that time even exist? What was his life.

Normally if his stomach was hurting like this, he would trudge down to the infirmary at the Garrison and ask the medics for medicine. Or if he was at home, he would have simply raided the medicine cabinet. But on the castle, it was more complicated.

With Coran's help, they were still figuring out what space meds worked on humans and what didn't, and he honestly couldn't remember if they had figured out something for stomachaches. At least they had that headache-banishing fruit-based stuff. Oh, maybe that would work for the stomachache too, sort of like Tylenol did for general pain? Worth a shot.

The meds were down in the infirmary, so he had a trek in front of him. Pushing up out of bed, Lance pulled his blanket with him and wrapped it over his shoulders, comforted by its warmth. His slippers were by the bed, and he stepped into them since the cold floor of the castle would freeze his toes.

Grumbling to himself and cursing his own bad decisions, Lance shuffled out into the corridor and started on his epic early morning adventure.

The lights were bright beyond the darkened hallway where their rooms were, and he blinked against the glow. He just wanted to get something for the pain and go back to bed. Maybe he could convince the others to let him sleep in for a little while tomorrow. Just an hour or so.

It was too quiet. Normally the ship was a tad creepy anyways, being so big and so empty, but at night, it was worse. The hair on the back of his neck stood up as he crept down the hallway, unconsciously staying quiet himself. He considered whistling just to fill the void, but he knew it would echo back and that would increase the haunted house vibes.

"Lance?"

He nearly jumped out of his skin at the unexpected sound of Shiro's voice behind him. As it was, he let out a yelp and backed up against the wall, startled. The quick movement aggravated the ache, and he winced, one hand on his stomach.

"Sorry," Shiro said, holding his hands up, half-smiling until he saw the look on Lance's face. "Is something wrong?"

"Beside you almost giving me a heart attack? Nah…" Lance waved him off and straightened up. He didn't want to look weak in front of Shiro, especially since he had brought this on himself. Stupid blue puffballs of deliciousness! "I'm just…walking…"

"At three in the morning?" Shiro asked, an eyebrow raised.

"You're out at three in the morning," Lance countered, frowning back at him.

"Good point." Shiro rubbed at the back of his neck, and Lance felt bad about pointing out Shiro's habit of 'patrolling' at weird hours. Allura had noticed it first, and now they were all aware that Shiro's sleep cycle was a total mess. The man catnapped more than anything else. He probably needed a few years worth of REM sleep to catch up. "Still, you're usually not up until someone drags you out of bed." His tone was teasing not accusing. "What's wrong?"

"Nothing," Lance said, "I'm just…I've got a stomachache." A blush warmed his cheeks and he wondered if it would be way too childish to hide under his blanket. Kids got stomachaches from eating too much candy. His metabolism should've put the smackdown on all that sugar with ease. "I'm just going to go get something from the infirmary then go back to bed."

Now it was Shiro's turn to frown. "How long have you been sick?" he asked, concerned. He reached out and before Lance could protest, he pressed his wrist to Lance's forehead for a moment. "It feels like you have a fever." He put two fingers against Lance's neck, and he realized Shiro was taking his pulse.

"No, I don't," Lance said, pushing Shiro's hand away, "Quit it. I'm not really sick, I just ate too many of those blue things. Remember? We had an eating contest, it was lots of fun?"

"I'd still feel better if you let Coran run a few tests."

Oh, no, no way. Then the whole team would know, and he would just curl up in Blue and die of embarrassment. He was way tougher than that. He should've just stayed in his room and suffered in silence until the stomachache passed.

"Bro, you worry too much. I'm just going to go grab that anti-pain fruit juice from the infirmary. Don't go even more grey over it." Stepping backwards away from Shiro, Lance forced a carefree smile. "Seriously, it's not that bad."

"Lance—"

Before Shiro could stop him, Lance rushed off down the hallway and ducked into a lift, heading to the infirmary. He just needed some medicine, and he wasn't going to let Shiro or anyone else turn it into a big deal. He liked attention, but he didn't want them to be all concerned about him. It would make him feel like he was bringing the team down.

When he reached the infirmary, he started rummaging through the cabinet that Coran had designated for human use. It was where they stored any kind of medication they found that humans could use without serious repercussions. Luckily, the only side effect of the headache medicine was fatigue, and he could use some of that right now.

Grabbing the right bottle, he poured some of it out into a little beaker, feeling like a mad scientist. "Insert evil laughter here," he said to himself before he downed the medicine. Sour, sour, he had forgotten that it tasted like a pickle and a lemon had a baby. Sticking his tongue out and trying not to gag, Lance put away the meds and pulled his blanket tighter around his shoulder. He wished the relief had been instant since it almost felt like the pain was steadily getting worse, but it would take some time to take effect.

There were a few exam tables in the room, and he wandered over to one of them. Maybe he would just camp out in the infirmary for a while instead of trying to dodge Shiro to get back to his room. Hopefully he wouldn't come down to the infirmary. Lance curled up on the table, settling his blanket over him and cushioning his head on his hands.

Just a short nap, then he would go back to his room.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It's getting worse...

Something jostled Lance's shoulder, forcing him into awareness.

"Lance, wake up," Shiro said, urgency in his voice, "Lance?"

He rubbed at his eyes and winced as pain shot through his stomach. He noticed that it had migrated away from his belly button and toward his right side. Ugh, why did it do that, it hurt worse now. Fighting the urge to curl up around the pain, he shot Shiro a half-hearted glare. "I was sleeping…"

"Yeah, in the infirmary." Voltron's leader was giving him one of those thinly veiled highly worried looks that he usually reserved for when someone on the team did something recklessly dangerous. "You said you were going back to bed."

"Well, this is a bed," Lance said, patting the firm, barely-cushioned exam table. He swung his legs over the side and sat up, feeling vulnerable while he was laying down. Ow, ow, that didn't feel pleasant. But now he could be eye to eye with Shiro instead of letting the older guy hover over him.

"Did your stomachache get better?" Shiro asked.

"Eh…" Lance shrugged. "I don't think the meds have kicked in yet."

"You've been asleep for four hours, I hope they'd kick in by now."

Oh, man, he had only intended to nap down here, not spend the night. The meds must've worked for a little while, at least, since he had been able to sleep some. "Right." He looked around, wondering if would be safe to take some more of the medicine or if he should try to tough it out. "It can't last that much longer. It's just a stomachache."

"That's what you _think_ it is," Shiro countered.

"What else could it be?" Lance shifted and slid off the table, lowering his slippered feet to the floor. Nooo, ouch, okay, moving around was no good. If he just stood there, it probably wouldn't hurt so much. He leaned back against the table and crossed his arms over his chest.

"Do you feel nauseous? Maybe it's food poisoning."

Now that he mentioned it, maybe Lance did feel a little nauseous, but that could have been from downing those meds earlier. "No one else is sick," Lance said, "So I don't think it's that. Don't worry about it."

Shiro rolled his eyes. "You're my friend and part of my team, I think I'm allowed to be a little worried when you're sick."

Well, that gave him warm fuzzy feelings, but he wasn't backing down. He was fine, he just needed more time to recover from gorging on the blue sugar puffs. "It's more of an 'if' than a 'when,'" Lance replied, trying to give him a confident smile, "This is just what happens when you eat too much of a good thing. You're too lawful good to understand, you've never overeaten anything."

"You haven't seen me with brownies," Shiro said, "Are you sure you're going to be okay?"

"Dude, you're starting to sound like my mom, and I'm not sure how I feel about that."

Shiro chuckled. "All right, well, breakfast is in about thirty minutes. Are you going to be there?" He gave Lance another long, uncertain look, and Lance gave him a shaky thumbs up. Finally he left, and Lance slumped against the exam table.

Right, he just needed to push through this. No big deal. People got stomachaches all the time and survived. Hell, when they first shot off into space, stomachaches had been common for just about everyone as they adjusted to space food. He would just, er, move slowly and take his time.

When he finally made it to the dining room, the others were all there, eating breakfast. They all stared when he walked in.

"You okay?" Hunk asked, "You don't look so good."

"You look awful," Pidge told him, "Like, really really bad, Lance."

"Thank you, everyone, thank you, it takes a lot to get this sexy appearance. Thanks for noticing," he said as he dropped down into his chair. Pain stabbed through his gut, and he leaned forward, resting his elbows on the table.

"Pidge, drop it," Shiro said, coming to Lance's defense, "He's not feeling well."

"I can tell by his face. Wow."

"Pidge."

Lance didn't have the energy to get into a verbal sparring match with their resident ball of sarcasm. He also had absolutely no appetite for the alien bird eggs and space pig bacon that had been fixed. Mmm. There was some toast on the table, so he gingerly leaned over, speared a piece, and brought it back to his plate. The jam-like spread was even farther away and suddenly he wasn't sure if he wanted that sticky sweet stuff all over the bread anyways. His stomach rolled, and he took a quick, shallow breath. Nevermind, nope, he would settle for nibbling.

"What's wrong with him?" Keith asked Shiro, as if Lance couldn't answer for himself.

Lance picked a corner of his toast off and tossed it at the red paladin, bouncing it off his dumb hair. "I just don't feel well," he said, "Now that everyone knows, can we talk about something else?"

Across the table, Coran looked like he wanted to ask more questions, but Lance turned his focus to his plate. If he didn't make eye contact, maybe they would stop making this into an ordeal.

"Well, I was thinking that we could run maneuvers through the edge of the asteroid field," Shiro said, "It's not densely packed, but we could practice forming and breaking apart Voltron. We need to speed up the process so we can transition smoothly between Voltron and the lions."

"We can follow you along the field with the castle and keep track of your progress," Allura said, "We can even use the castle's defenses to liven up the scenario, if you would like."

"I would _not_ like," Hunk said, "Let's save the defenses for other people and not us."

"It could be fun," Keith said, "It's better than a laser simulation."

"You have a messed-up sense of fun," Pidge said, "Don't you remember last time?"

"All right, settle down," Shiro said.

Lance looked up to find Shiro watching him, and he lifted his eyebrows in a silent ' _what_ '. Just because he didn't have anything to say right now didn't mean diddly squat. Couldn't he spend breakfast silently nibbling on something?

"Lance, would you like something else to eat?" Allura asked. She was watching him across the table, a tentative smile on her face. Oh yay, now the princess was worried he was going to keel over. "You didn't have much for breakfast."

"I'm not really hungry," he said, trying to be nonchalant, "I'm fine."

"Are you sure—"

"Yep, super sure, gotta go get Blue!" He stood up and then braced against the table. It felt like someone was stabbing him in the stomach with a red hot knife and then dragging the blade around. Tears sprang to his eyes as he forced himself to stand up straight.

"You okay there, bud?" Hunk asked, standing up and reaching toward Lance.

He waved him off and walked toward the door, willing himself to not buckle. "Yeah, yeah, yes. See you guys in space. I mean. Outside the spaceship space." He made a vague gesture toward the ship's hull and then hurried out of the room as fast as he could go, feeling stupid on top of hurting.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Everything starts to catch up to Lance, and he thinks he can make it better or at least ignore it through will power and joking.

Lance made it to Blue before anyone could chase him down, and he headed out into space before the other paladins even went to their hangars. See, he was totally fine. Of course, the moment he launched Blue, he landed her on her turret of the castle and stationed her there while he laid down on the floor on the cockpit.

Damn, but just lying flat on the floor did feel good. Maybe the others would forget about the training exercise and he could just stay where he was. Perfectly still. Moving hurt a lot.

It ached anyways, even when he wasn't moving, but walking was the worst. He would just have to suck it up and get back into his pilot's chair whenever the others launched. For now, the floor was just fine.

Hold up. Lance cursed himself as he remembered a really important step he had forgotten to take before climbing into his lion.

As if reading Lance's mind, Shiro's voice came over the comm unit. "Lance, you're already in Blue, right?"

Lance groaned and thunked his forehead against the floor. "Yeah…"

"Okay, then why is your armor still here?"

Man, why couldn't he just fly Blue in fuzzy lion slippers and pjs? No one said he couldn't wear a t-shirt and pajama pants while forming Voltron. And the idea of going back, climbing out of Blue, and shoving himself into his armor made him shiver. "I'm protesting the forming-Voltron dress code. I feel like it's stifling my creativity."

"Are you serious right now or are you joking? How are you feeling?"

"I'm feeling like I want to try flying like this. All, you know, pajama-ized." That word struck him as funny, and he chuckled, which was the wrong thing to do. The red hot knife was back with some friends, all of them attacking his right side. Taking a few shallow breaths, Lance curled up around his stomach, hands against the throbbing pain.

"Bring Blue back to the hangar right now." Shiro sounded serious and worried as he delivered the order. "I tried to catch you before you left, but you need to come back. You have to go to the infirmary, Lance, we need to figure out what's going on." Lance's heart plummeted.

"No," he said, and when he realized that sounded whiny, he scrambled to recover. "I mean, I don't need to, Shiro. I can do this, I just…"

"You're sick, you forgot your armor, and honestly, you sound like you're in a lot of pain," Shiro said quietly, "I need you to come back in."

Lance didn't say anything. Instead he pressed his cheek against the floor and screwed his eyes shut. He was starting to feel cold, though he was convinced that was just Blue. She tended to run the AC too much in the cockpit.

"Come on, Lance, we're worried about you," Hunk said over the comms, "Stop being so stubborn."

"If you don't come back, we can always get Black to drag Blue back in," Keith said, "She's big enough."

"And we'll help," Pidge put in.

He didn't want to take Blue back to her hangar. For one, it would show that he couldn't just power through the pain. On top of that, it meant getting off the floor and back into his pilot's chair, and he didn't want to do that. With every passing minute, it felt like the pain was getting worse, and moving definitely increased how much it ached.

"Lance? Buddy?"

"Do you think he passed out? What if he passed out?"

"We should go get him, Shiro."

"Lance!"

"I can hear you guys. Geez, chill out," he mumbled, "I'll come back, just give me a minute."

"If you're not back here in five minutes, we're coming after you," Shiro said.

Lance made a face. "Five minutes? Hurrah, that's so generous of you."

"Oh, by the way, Shiro, he gets extra sarcastic when he's sick," Hunk said, "It's bad."

"I sort of noticed, Hunk, but thanks."

Lance shoved himself onto his knees and almost cried out. All right, he could do this, he could make it to the chair. He got to his feet, and this time he yelped, but he clapped his hand over his mouth, muffling it.

"Cut comms, Blue," he muttered, and the others' voices were silenced. He was sure that Shiro or Pidge could somehow override that order, Shiro through Black and Pidge through hacking, but he had a moment's reprieve from his team's worry. Misplaced worry, right? It couldn't be that serious, they were just…exaggerating. Getting worked up over nothing. Then again, it hurt _so_ much.

He leaned against the pilot's chair, arms hanging over the front of it. "Hey, Beautiful? Can you do me a favor? Can you fly back to the hangar? I think I want to lie down again."

In answer to his request, Blue gently took off, sending him a reassuring feeling of comfort. He carefully lowered himself back to the ground, wishing he had a pillow and a blanket and maybe a heating pad. Ohhh, a heating pad would be so great right now, maybe there was one laying around the castle. That would help with the pain.

The Lion set down in her hangar, and he noticed that instead of staying in her normal sitting position, she lowered her head to the floor and opened the ramp. Okay, so… He could crawl out of Blue and into his hangar, where he had a couch he had nabbed from a flea market on one of the planets that they had visited. But it was just as comfortable to stay right where he was.

"Comms online, Blue," he said, and he knew the moment she brought them back online because everyone was yelling. "I'm back inside, so you guys can go…do stuff? What're you going to do without me anyway? Form a one-legged Voltron?" They couldn't practice forming Voltron without him, could they? Aw, man, now he was screwing up training.

Pidge started yelling at him. "Lance, why did you turn off your comms, are you crazy, why would you do that?!"

He was caught off guard when Shiro suddenly stepped into Blue's cockpit, followed closely by Coran. What in the great quiznak were they doing there? Coran was supposed to be on the bridge with Allura and Shiro should've been in his lion.

"Is he there, Shiro?" Hunk's voice came over the comm sounding slightly panicky, "Is he awake? Lance, don't die!"

"Totally dead, bro," Lance said, "This is my dead voice talking to you over the zombie airwaves."

"Shiro?!"

"That's not funny, Lance," Pidge said, "We were really worried, so stop being stupid!"

"It's all right, guys," Shiro said, calm as ever.

"That's a mighty odd way to pilot your lion, my boy," Coran said to Lance, his voice gentle as he stepped over toward him, kneeling down and putting a hand on his shoulder. "Not exactly conventional."

"I'm experimenting," Lance mumbled, "This is my new battle position. I call it the fetal warrior." He looked up at Coran and then past him at Shiro, his face heating up with shame. He tried to sit up, mentally shoving down the pain. "Shiro, I'm sorry, I ruined—"

"I like it better when you're sarcastic," Shiro interrupted, a small smile on his face as he bent down and helped Lance sit up. "Don't apologize. Everyone gets hurt or sick sometimes, we're not invincible."

"But we're space superheroes," Lance countered, feeling like that was an important reason, "By the way, did I ever tell you I'm going to marry Wonder Woman? Totally doing that." He closed his eyes tight as the knife seemed to shift into a sword. How could it be getting worse? Why wasn't it getting better? "I demand betterness," he grumbled to himself, squinting his eyes open to see Shiro and Coran exchange a look over him.

Shiro frowned at him and rested his left hand on his forehead. Lance pulled away weakly, but Shiro didn't let go. "You definitely have a fever. This isn't just a stomachache." Lance thought briefly about pinching Shiro, since that's what he did to his older brothers when they were being annoying. That or punching him. He was blowing everything out of proportion.

"Gonna pi-unch you," Lance said, pointing at Shiro's face. He couldn't decide whether to go with pinch or punch, so he wound up with a combination of both of them. "Leave me alone."

Shiro looked at Coran again. "He sounds really out of it."

"I am not out of it, I'm in it," Lance said, slapping a hand against Blue, "My lion."

"Uh-huh…Come on, let's go get you checked out." Shiro reached for him, and together he and Coran got Lance to his feet.

Lance really wished they hadn't. A couple tears escaped, defying Lance's determination to not cry. He shrugged his shoulder and turned his head the side, trying to rub them away.

Neither Shiro nor Coran said anything about it as they helped him out of Blue and toward the hangar doors, and he was grateful for their silence.


	4. Chapter 4

"Can we…let's look into getting some moving walkways or something," Lance suggested, "I think it'd be totally worth it."

"While we're at it, we could just install teleporters," Shiro said wryly. Lance wasn't sure, but he thought Shiro was trying to keep him talking. Or distract him. "Then we could just teleport from one side of the ship to the other."

"Wormholes. We use—" Lance winced, his foot catching on the floor and halting the others for a moment. The pain never stopped anymore, but sometimes it hurt a little less. "Wait…" With a nod, he started walking again, trembling from the stupid amount of effort this was taking. "Um…we could have wormholes. In the hangar bays. Can Allura do that?"

"I have no idea what you're talking about, Lance," Coran said, taking the conversation seriously, "There's no such thing as small-scale teleportation that I know of, and even if there was, we can't very well be popping wormholes into the ship's structure all willy-nilly."

"We're almost there," Shiro said to Lance, "You're sure you don't—"

"Pick me up and I'll barf on you."

"You could just say no."

"All the barf, Shiro."

Every step sent razor sharp pains through his side, even with Shiro and Coran supporting him, but it was better than Shiro trying to carry him. Even with his hazy brain, Lance knew he didn't want Shiro tossing him over his shoulder fireman-style and hauling him to the infirmary. That was fine when you were unconscious or bleeding out, but not when you could move on your own. Also, his stomach would probably explode if he was jostled around that much. Just saying.

Shiro looked at him, those sculpted eyebrows of his coming together. "So you _are_ nauseous."

"And your eyebrows _are_ very impressive."

Shiro shook his head as they hobbled into the infirmary, a six-legged monster. "You have to be honest with us, got it? It's important."

"He's right," Coran said, tutting softly, "Only with all the proper knowledge can we truly assess this situation. So try not to hold anything back."

"Okay. So, this one time, when I was five, I stole bendy straws from my dad's favorite restaurant. They were…so cool."

Shiro made a face. "If you're coherent enough to joke, you're coherent enough to know what I meant—"

"I felt really guilty about it, but I never told anyone. How's that? So honest."

"Lance!" Shiro broke away, leaving Lance to lean against Coran. Shiro took a few steps forward and held his hand over his mouth for a moment, his back to them. When Shiro turned around, Lance was surprised by the unnerved look in his friend's grey eyes and instantly felt bad about being uncooperative. "We need to figure this out before it gets worse, and to do that, I need you to be a little more serious. I know you're hurting and this is your way of dealing with it, but, look, you're—"

"I'm sort of nauseous."

"Huh?"

"I'm…a little nauseous, I guess," Lance said, "And I'm cold, and my stomach hurts." He looked down at the floor, studying the smooth Altean metals. "It feels like someone borrowed Keith's knife and shoved it into my right side and left it. And then it did that thing where it turns into a stupid sword. I think it's ridiculous that his knife does that." He sniffed, letting his head hang forward. "If I'm being honest."

Something like relief rushed over Shiro's face, but it was mixed with worry. "Okay, we can start there." He slid back under Lance's arm to help him to rest of the way to an exam table.

"How long have you been in pain?" Coran asked.

"I don't know…when was I up again, Shiro?"

"Since at least three this morning," Shiro told Coran.

"Right," Lance said, nodding. He leaned against the exam table, knowing he would have to get on it but not wanting to actually do that just yet. Just standing there and not moving at all was good enough, right? "Coran, Shiro needs to sleep more. We need to fix that."

"I agree, but let's focus on one issue at a time, shall we?" Coran said. He stepped over to the console next to the exam table, the one that ran all the scans and tests and everything. Lance had no idea what any of it said, but they always used it before popping someone into the healing pods. He wouldn't need one of those, would he? Not again, ahh, that would make it his second time going into one, and Keith, Pidge, and Hunk hadn't even been in once. That wouldn't be fair, and the universe wasn't out to get him.

Was it?

Lance dug his fingers into the exam table's padding, feeling the slight give of the material. All right, okay, he could do this, it was dumb to just stand here. He had to accept that it was going to hurt.

"Hold on a moment—" Coran started, but Lance shook his head.

"It's okay, I've got this."

"But if you would—"

Lance hopped up onto the exam table and instantly regretted it. His vision seemed to flash white then darken as pain shot through his side, and a ripple of ice spread out under his skin. Part of him registered that Shiro was talking and gripping his shoulder then helping him lay down, but he felt unanchored from what was going on. There was a panting sound. Oh.

That was _him_.

"That didn't feel good," he said once he had gotten his breath back.

Coran coughed. "As I was saying, wait until I lower the exam table."

Rule for the future, let Coran finish his sentences. He got to practice listening as Coran asked him a series of questions and entered Lance's answers into the console. It bugged him sometimes that they kept this advanced medical technology to themselves and didn't just take the whole castle back to Earth. Yeah, saving the universe from Zarkon was super important, but they could visit home, show them some cool things about the castle and give them a healing pod to reverse engineer, then go back to space. And then he could see his family and tell them all about being a paladin and how much he missed them.

"It's going to be okay, Lance," Shiro said, patting his arm.

"It's not that…"

"Then what—"

Before Shiro could finish, there was a commotion at the infirmary door. Lance turned his head to the side and propped himself up on his elbows as Hunk and Keith stepped in, followed by Allura and Pidge. Aw man, did everyone have to show up? Embarrassment burned at him almost as much as the pain in his side.

"See, he's really not a zombie, Hunk," Keith said, gesturing toward Lance, "He just, um, sort of resembles one right now. But he's not, he's fine."

"I still don't understand this concept of being un-dead," Allura said, "And why would a walking corpse want to eat brains?"

"Because it's what humans are most afraid of losing," Pidge said with a shrug.

Hunk hurried over to the exam table. He gently flicked Lance on the arm and shot him a wavering frown. "Next time just tell us when you're feeling this bad, okay?"

"Yeah, yeah..." Now that the others were here, Lance wanted to sit up and get off the table and act like everything was fine. But he had a feeling that someone would just shove him back down and he would get lectured by at least three or four people.

"All right, Lance, you're going to need to stay still," Coran said.

"Aw, man," mumbled Lance, "I was planning on practicing ballet right now."

"Wait, you know ballet?" Keith asked incredulously.

Lance almost laughed. "Yes, Keith, I know all the ballets. I am the prime ballerina."

"It's prima ballerina," Hunk offered.

"Yeah, that."

"Maybe you can ballet later," Coran said. He strapped some kind of device around Lance's wrist and then stepped back over to the console. The exam table hummed, coming to life to begin its first set of scans. Lance closed his eyes as his skin tingled and a cool sensation rushed over him, starting at his toes and brushing up to his head.

"Why's that lit up red?" Hunk's voice asked.

"That indicates infection or inflammation," Coran said, "But that's such a small bit of tissue. What is that, actually?" Whenever the exam system couldn't label a body part, Coran always ended up asking the paladins, as if they were all anatomy experts. Lance often popped in with the answer to the more obscure parts of anatomy, since he had helped his oldest brother study for medical school. Sometimes Shiro or Keith would know too, Shiro from some field medic class he'd had to take at the Garrison and Keith because he'd gotten in enough fights or crazy situations and seen enough emergency rooms to know those kinds of things. That guy had an impressive list of broken bones, though Lance would never tell him that.

"I don't know…" Hunk said.

Lance glanced over but he ached too much to even make a guess at the red spot on the hologram-esque display. He did catch Coran and Shiro sharing a look and quiet rushed exchange, and then Shiro was moving toward the exam table.

"Hey, Lance? I'm sorry in advance about this, but I'm going to press on your side for a second and I need you to tell me if it hurts worse when I stop. All right?"

Lance shook his head. "Uh, not all right. Why? It's not like it's _not_ going to hurt."

Shiro ran his hand through his hair. "It's a test from field medic training."

He chewed his bottom lip and resigned himself to more pain. "Okay…" He thought he was mentally prepared, but when Shiro pressed down on his side and then suddenly pulled his hands away, Lance cried out. Did his side even exist anymore? Shiro had just mercilessly destroyed it, so he would be shocked if there was anything left.

"Sorry, I'm sorry," Shiro said, gripping Lance's arm as he curled up, "I had to check."

"So. Mean."

"I'm really sorry..."

"What do you think is wrong with him? Pidge asked, sounding tense.

"I think that's his appendix," Shiro said. He gestured to the red-tinted part of the hologram and then looked over at Lance, meeting his eyes and that's when Lance really began to feel frightened. Because now Shiro didn't just look worried. He looked scared, and Shiro didn't scare easily. "I'm pretty sure Lance has appendicitis."

Oh. No wonder Shiro looked scared.

He thought Lance was going to die.

 


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Laaaance, you don't deserve this, and I am a terrible person. Sorry this took forever, I got distracted, but I'm making a New Years resolution to finish all my fics! So I thought I would get a jumpstart on finishing this. It's a little short but hopefully the next one will be longer!

The following silence was too much for Lance. "Is that all?" He forced a laugh, pushing away the pain as he made himself sit up. He couldn't stand the expressions on his friends' faces, the dawning shock and fear. "I thought you were going to say I had some kind of literal space stomach bug."

"Shiro, you can't just say stuff like that," Hunk said as he shot a glare at Lance for that dumb comment. "You're not sure it's…You don't know."

"You're right, I'm not one hundred percent sure, and I don't want to scare you, Lance," Shiro said, "It's just that the symptoms line up and that scan makes it likely."

Lance shrugged, trying to play it cool. "Yeah, got it. I don't need an appendix anyways, right?"

"No, but…" Shiro trailed off, his mouth a tight line of concern.

The likelihood of them being able to fix an appendix in space was pretty low, wasn't it? It wasn't like any of the medical stuff in the medbay was capable of performing surgery on a human, and the healing pods wouldn't make it better, right? They were just for injuries, not weird internal infections or whatever this was.

"I'm sorry, what's an appendicitis?" Allura asked, her eyebrows knit together as she looked at them. Beside her, Coran was standing with his hands on his hips, also expecting an answer.

"An appendix is this vestigial organ that all humans have," Pidge said, staring at Lance as if he might disappear if she looked away, "Sometimes they get infected, and we call that appendicitis. The only real cure that we have is called an appendectomy."

"Which is a surgical procedure," Shiro sighed. He was standing straight and rigid, also watching Lance like a hawk. Normally Lance would have basked under all this attention but right now it made him uncomfortable.

"Oh quiznak," Coran said, his eyes widening. "That's not good news."

Lance decided to look down at his fingers instead of his friends so he wouldn't have to see them all increasingly freak out about him.

"They're worried I'm going to kick the bucket," Lance said flippantly, studying his fingernails, "'Cause that's what happens if you don't get an appendectomy thing."

"Why would you kick a bucket?" Coran asked, frowning, "Do you need a bucket?"

"Lance, can you _not_ be like that right now," Pidge said. She crossed her arms over her chest and scowled at him. "It's not funny!"

He looked over at Hunk, who looked torn between being angry and being sad, which meant he looked terribly upset. Nearby, Keith was a stewing pot of frustration that was about to boil over.

"We have to go back to Earth," Keith said, "So Lance can go to a hospital where they can deal with this sort of thing." He spun on a heel, looking at Allura and Coran. "He could die."

Allura and Coran both looked properly horrified.

"I thought he was going to kick a bucket!" Coran said, dismayed.

"Keith!" Pidge and Shiro said at the same time.

"Well, just put it out there," Lance said with a groan, "That's got to be worse than me saying kick the bucket, Pidge."

"It's serious," Keith said, ignoring the other paladins, "This is really serious."

"We could go to Earth…" Coran said, looking at Allura uncertainly.

"But it would mean that the Galra would follow us there eventually," Allura said, spreading her hands open in a helpless gesture. "We assume that they have left your home planet alone for now, but if we go back—"

"We're not going to Earth," Lance said, wincing, "We're not going to put everyone in danger like that." The pain was back, a steady gut-wrenching stabbing in his stomach. He laid down on the scanner and curled in on himself. He felt a big, warm hand on his shoulder, and Hunk squeezed his arm.

"Lance…"

Lance shook his head. "No. Don't you guys dare take the Castle there. I mean it. We're not going." If the Galra went to Earth, the whole planet would be in danger, his family included. And Earth was great, but it definitely didn't have the means to stand up to the Galra. Earth would become yet another Galra-ruled planet if they weren't careful. They were lucky that it hadn't happened yet, especially since the Galra knew where they were from.

"Okay, okay," Shiro said quietly, "We'll…figure something else out." He ran his hand through his hair, making his white tuft stand up. "Coran, any ideas? He needs a hospital of some sort."

"I'm sure we can find something," Coran said, "There used to be a fantastic facility out on the Turils Belt! I wonder if they're still in operation."

"I'll start looking," Pidge said, perking up, "I'll put out a search for hospitals that aren't run by the Galra. There's got to be some place out there that specializes in xenobiology and emergency medicine. Even a xeno-veterinarian might work."

"Awesome, sure, take me to the space vet," Lance said, somewhat amused at the idea.

"Hey, it could work," Pidge said before she headed out the door. "Just give me a couple hours."

"See if you can trim that down to an hour," Shiro called after her.

Lance closed his eyes as another spasm of pain raged through his stomach. Ugh, this was the absolute worst. He wished his mom was there…she would know what to do. Of course, so would a hospital, but he still wanted his mom and dad there.

"Hey, you're going to be okay," Hunk said, squeezing Lance's shoulder again, "So, you know, don't freak out."

"You don't freak out, either," Lance mumbled, "All right?"

"No one's going to freak out besides Keith," Hunk said.

"I'm not freaking out," Keith retorted, "I'm just trying to think of a solution."

"Lance, we're going to figure this out," Shiro said, "Just rest for now."

"And I'll find you a bucket after we find a hospital!" Coran said, which got a smile out of Lance.

"At least I get a bucket out of all this…"


End file.
